


Punishment

by lazyfatkitsune



Category: Peacemaker Kurogane
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-03
Updated: 2006-06-03
Packaged: 2017-10-14 07:12:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyfatkitsune/pseuds/lazyfatkitsune





	Punishment

He could hear the coughs, had heard it since the beginning. After some time, he had noticed the coughs turned from dry, heaving coughs to wet, choking ones. And it was at these times when he felt an overwhelming urge to either go to the childlike man, or to run far away from him. Sometimes, he did neither; instead he laid on the futon, trying hard not to hear anything at all.

But on the occasions that he took the medicine to Souji's room, he kept watch over him the entire night. Perhaps he feared that the panted breathing would stop in the middle of the night, and Souji would die horribly alone. Or maybe he wanted to be there to answer the young samurai should he ever call for help. But Souji did neither. He merely smiled at the coughing intervals and said that he was fine.

Hijikata did not ask much because he thought he could perhaps understand why Souji never said much on his suffering. Perhaps, in a way, the young man felt like he deserved it, for all the blood he caused to be spilt in dark alleyways, or in raided rooms. Perhaps he thought that he deserved to die of something he could not fight.

The Vice Commander of the Shinsengumi, on the other hand, felt that he deserved to watch Death claim his lover in the slowest and most painful way because he was the one who created a demon in the first place. He was the one who created an _oni_ who spilled the most blood in each battle. Because of that, he deserved to watch his own creation slowly fade into a pale dying shadow of his former self.

On some nights when he stayed up late into the nights and could still hear the wet coughs turn into painful choking, he thought that in the end, it was their punishment. It was retribution, for one demon to watch the other suffer, both utterly helpless like the many victims that they slaughtered in the dead of nights.

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